When Castro dies and Cuba lives
By Bruce Walker
web posted July 14, 2003
Fidel Castro will die soon. On that day, the Cuban people will
have hope. On that day, the world will take another step toward
freedom. The mythology surrounding Castro in Leftist circles is
breathtaking. He is credited with replacing a monster, Fulgencio
Batista, but by any measurement Castro was worse than Batista.
Batista was democratically elected as President of Cuba and he
lost the next election in 1944, Batista left office (later returning as
a political boss.) He was a self-described "progressive socialist"
whose 1940 Constitution abolished the death penalty,
guaranteed racial and sexual equality, provided guaranteed state
employment and free, compulsory public education. Batista
legalized the Communist Party and appointed communists as
cabinet ministers.
The Left, however, demonizes its own when they become
politically inconvenient. Mussolini, for example, began and ended
his political career as a committed socialist. Hitler and most of his
Nazis believed in social and economic equality, and Nazi
economic policies in Germany were indistinguishable from
socialist democracies today.
The Party of the People, which governed China before 1949,
rejected capitalism, even though its mortal political enemy,
Maoist Communism, also rejected capitalism. Evita Peron, weird
icon of modern Leftists, adored both Fascism and National
Socialism after the Holocaust was known, and supported
redistribution of wealth.
Castro, like Evita, was virulently anti-Semitic, enamored with
Mussolini, sympathetic to Adolph Hitler, enchanted with
Stalinism - and deeply hostile to free enterprise and to America.
So naturally, both became icons of America's traitorous Left.
When Castro seized power in Cuba, he took over a nation that
had 94 radio stations, 11 television stations, 519 movie theaters
and 58 periodicals. Only two nations in the Western Hemisphere
– the United States and Argentina - had more radios and
television sets than Cuba.
Caloric consumption, literacy rates and infant mortality rates put
Cuba far above Mexico, Central America or any of the other
Carribean nations. Indeed, Cuba overall had a higher standard of
living than any Spanish speaking nation on Earth.
Why does the American Left has such a crush on Castro?
Because he, like they, have an inexhaustible hatred of America.
This rage will be the undoing of the Left. Cuba, unlike Russia, is
close to America. That has made our indigenous Marxists of the
Democrat Party too reckless.
When Castro dies, Cuba will move rapidly toward freedom. The
robust Cuban community in America can make the rage that the
Iraqi people shown toward Saddam Hussein seem gentle by
comparison. The world will then see just how awful Castro really
was.
This will expose our own American Castro sympathizers to
hostile scrutiny much more intense than these traitors have yet
experienced. Moreover, the demonstration of how horribly
communism and Castro have failed the Cuban people will send
shock waves through Mexico, Brazil and the other lands whose
leaders say - and whose people actually believe - that Fidel
Castro has created a paradise rather than a grand Devil's Island.
When Castro dies, President Bush can travel to Cuba, flanked
by Cuban Republicans, and speak in Spanish to the newly
liberated former serfs of one of the most savage failures in
modern history. Moreover, he can promise much more than just
lifting of an economic embargo. He can promise help of every
kind, with the specific intention of turning Cuba into an example
of what other Latin America nations could be, if the people gave
up envy and embraced instead freedom.
Spanish-speaking peoples, like English-speaking peoples, are
spread throughout the world. They are not uniformly hostile
toward America and its values. It is not accidental that Spain is
one of the few nations in Europe which stood beside us in
Operation Iraqi Freedom. It is not coincidence that the
Philippines is one of our closest allies in the war on terrorism.
When Castro dies, then Cuba will begin its rise to a place among
the most prosperous and happy lands on Earth - a sharp contrast
to the dreary and graying states of Old Europe or Japan. When
Castro dies, everything will change - and all of it for the better.
When Castro dies, Cuba lives.
Bruce Walker is a senior writer with Enter Stage Right. He is
also a frequent contributor to The Pragmatist and The Common
Conservative.
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com